Why compete when you can just ban your rival’s product? One strong competitor was enough to shake the nerves of Western tech giants. There are reasons for it. It spent zero dollars on promotion, yet amassed 100 million users in just a week! No other service has ever achieved such growth. After the initial shock, the narrative shifted: Deepseek wasn’t as innovative as it seemed, they said. It allegedly stole technology, violated sanctions, smuggled equipment, and, of course, the Chinese government was spying on you through it. Choose your favorite excuse for why you should forget about this service. But some governments didn’t even bother with explanations and simply banned it.

"National security" is always a convenient trump card, easily pulled from the sleeve when needed. And since the company is Chinese, the panic escalated. Italy was the first to act without hesitation. Soon after, Taiwan, Australia, and South Korea followed, with more countries expected to join. The official reason? Concerns over user data collection.

Now, a ban proposal is making its way through the U.S. Congress. Politicians rushed to ban it to protect their citizens' security. In some cases, such bans really make sense, especially when applied to government employees. But here’s the catch: these concerns never seem to apply to similar Western services.

Let’s not pretend data collection is some rare or outrageous practice. Every major platform does it. Websites and browsers harvest user data for marketing purposes. With such an approach to security, many more services would be under scrutiny.

What is the next logical step? Why not target investors then? Make it illegal to fund cost-effective, cutting-edge technologies from certain countries. Because why allow competition when you can just eliminate it?

#Deepseek #AI #competition